Ex-Labour MP told staffer ‘he craved her body’, tribunal hears

A Labour MP wrote to a member of parliamentary staff saying he craved her body and climbed into her bed twice, an employment tribunal was told on Tuesday.

Mike Hill, who represented Hartlepool, resigned as Labour MP in March, sparking Thursday’s byelection and a victory for the Conservatives. Hill is facing claims of sexual harassment and victimisation, which he denies, at the tribunal in central London.

In a witness statement, Ms A said Hill, who is married, suggested she move to London to work in parliament.

She claimed that after it became clear that the parliamentary expenses authority, Ipsa, would not cover her accommodation costs, Hill suggested that they could live together in a flat, which would be covered by his expenses.

Ms A said she had made it clear to Hill that they were friends and she planned to remain celibate, the statement said.

But in September 2017 after she had made arrangements to leave her home and move to London, she claimed Hill called her with an ultimatum.

“He told me that he could not share a flat with a woman he loved unless I shared a bed with him,” the statement said.

“In a subsequent message, Mr Hill told me that he craved my body,” she wrote.

Hill later apologised and insisted she should still work and live with him but that he would not make further advances, she claimed.

Ms A moved to London following the reassurances, but was then “startled” one night in December when she became aware that Hill had climbed into her bed and was rubbing himself against her.

“[He] had his arms wrapped around me and was feeling my breasts. I managed to get out of bed and went to the living room. I was crying and shaking,” she wrote.

A second sexual assault in her bedroom occurred the following month, Ms A claimed. She also claimed that he sexually harassed her in his narrow parliamentary office on several occasions.

Ms A said she told Kate Hollern, the Labour MP for Blackburn, and Andrew Bridgen, the senior Conservative backbench MP, about the alleged sexual assaults.

Ms A said she was refused a pay rise and eventually lost her job after declining Hill’s advances. Her complaint about alleged sexual assault, harassment and victimisation was lodged last year with Labour and also with parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS). Hill was suspended from the party.

The tribunal case continues.